AlvoRam!

We are clearly only signing players with beards this summer 😂

Remember when we got linked with Colin Kazim Richards and everyone hated it? Turned out alright in the circumstances so you never know.

31 years old. Six goals last season. Five before that. Not exactly edge of your seat stuff 🤷‍♂️

Welcome young buck... or as we say in Derby, Ay up me duck (Angelina Jolie will gladly explain that one, see https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/angelina-jolie-confuses-everyone-with-ay-up-me-duck-greeting-to-derby-actor-jack-o-connell-9870300.html)
Welcome to Ramkind where lows are as deep as the highs are high. The highest high being the camaraderie between Rams fans. I have had the pleasure of meeting a few posters in real life and they all made a favourable impression. There's no finer bunch anywhere than Derbeians, especially those who had the sense to move to Amsterdam 😉
 

Hi Jake
Prepare for defeats snatched from the jaws of victory
Prepare for failed expectations, false dawns and dashed hopes
Prepare for occasional triumphs
Prepare for having your heart broken, but loving them just the same
This is your life now
Welcome to the club
 

Hello Jake!
OK, we will have to set you some deep-learning modules :))
Search and read up a-plenty on these DCFC legends for starters, and then you'll love us even more!
Steve Bloomer
The Baseball Ground
Brian Clough & Peter Taylor
Kevin Hector
Dave Mackay
Roy McFarland
Igor Stimac
The Bald Eagle (Jim Smith)
David Clowes
 
Then for balance, to understand the true resilience of Rams fans in adversity, look up:
 
Robert Maxwell
The Three Amigos
Mel Morris
Quantuma
 
If you are still determined to be an honorary overseas Ram after that lot, you're as crazy as the rest of us!

Hello, my name is Jake and I recently created this account as I would like to make some new friends with other Derby County fans. I am from the US and have been a football fan for nearly my whole life. It is what comes with being brought up in a Latino household lol. Anyway I was initially drawn to English football, the premier league specifically, of course but never had any allegiances until around 2016. That is when I decided that I would support Tottenham of all teams LOL. Years passed and my passion as a Spurs fan died down and during that time period I became very entrenched in football. I would consider myself to be a football fanatic as I follow the 5 major leagues in Europe along with some of the other bigger leagues (Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal etc.) as well as the leagues in South America and Liga MX. As my Spurs fandom died down over the years and my knowledge of football began to expand I began to pay a lot of attention to the other 3 leagues in the English Football system and that is when I discovered Derby. I have to be honest I mainly became interested because of the badge and how much I like rams as animals haha. Anyway I began to start following Derby more recently and want to learn even more about the club as an outsider from across the pond and would love to meet fellow Derby fans who I can talk football with and learn more with. Not sure exactly how this whole website works, but feel free to leave comments about anything, I would love to have some cool conversations! 

Well guys we played pretty well and some decent touches on the ball I am please james collions getting first goal it was good cross in which scored good goal from. But 2nd half took a bit longer get into the games with james he got pace to burn and instant impact. And two new young lads he took the goal well and brown lad I was very very impressed with him I think he could make step up to first team but early doors buy signs are promising. But one man was slagging them off I turned around said for crying give lads a break for some this first time in a black and white shirt. He shut up after that I cant stand people slagging them off.

It was revealed by @ExiledinDerby about 2 weeks ago and taken as fact due to them being #ITK regarding the academy.
How much of that was due to Lyons and U21/23 football?
A common theme for a long time has been a lack of U21/23 football before being promoted to the first team. Here are the number of U21/23 games played before their 10th first team game:
Sibley - 32
Tommo - 31
Lowe - 24
Bird - 24
Cashin - 19
Williams - 16 (only 9 first team apps)
Ebosele - 16
Plange - 15
Whittaker - 15
Knight - 14
Stretton - 13
Buchanan - 12
Bogle - 8
Ebiowei - 5
In a healthy club, your star players will only have 1 season at U21 level before moving up to the first team or being sent out on loan. If not the very best, you'd expect 2 full seasons. If fast tracked at a much younger age, this would still apply. This also applies whether we're talking about top PL clubs and low Championship clubs. A few examples:
Mount played 25 games and Tomori 33 for Chelsea U23s before their loan journeys began
Chilwell played 29 for Leicester before breaking into the first team
Campbell 38 games for Stoke before his half season at Shrewsbury
Spence 29 games for Fulham and Boro before breaking into Boro's first team.
As I said before, there's a lack of game time at U21 level prior to first team exposure. For the likes of Plange, Ebiowei and Williams, their introduction to the first team was due to off field activities. Bird and Lowe stayed in the U21 for as long as they did only due to the sheer number of first team players ahead of them blocking their paths. However, for the rest I put it down to being 'held back' in the U18s for longer than necessary, and partially due to a lack of quality in coaching and match management within the U21 setup.
Being held back:
A large part of the problem was a lot of 20+ players being used on U21 matchdays. For example, in the 19/20 season (18 league games), the equivalent to 95 games were played by players 20 or older, with 19.5 games of those played by overage players (over 23). That's almost half of the total game time at that level gone to players regaining fitness, or with a slim chance of breaking through to our first team. It's game time which could have gone to more promising youngsters such as: McDonald (410 minutes), Ebosele (309 minutes), Archie Brown (286 minutes), Tommo (246 minutes),  Wilson (56 minutes), Cashin (1 minute), Stretton (0 minutes).
In 18/19, there were the equivalent to 125.1 games played by those 20+ in a 22 game season. Buchanan (270 minutes), JBrown (262 minutes), Wilson (239 minutes), Knight (228 minutes), Whittaker (173 minutes), McDonald (90 minutes), Stretton 2 minutes)
Whilst not as bad in 20/21, there were still the equivalent to 87.6 games give to those 20+ (24 games in the season), with some promising youngster still not playing as much as they should have. Williams (728 minutes), Ebosele (646 minutes), Cashin (540 minutes), Cybulski (5 minutes).
U21/23 coaching and management:
To keep it simple, I've felt that players haven't improved from playing U21/23 football. They improve a lot in the U18s, stagnate in the U21s, then improve a lot in the first team. I feel the reason for this is a mixture of the quality of coaching and the ability when managing the team in games.
 
I can see the changes within the club addressing both problem areas.

Move away from sponsors on shirts, 
 

Quick mock up.  Thoughts?

I’ve heard new sponsor is already sorted. Prototype shirt below:
 
 

That would be a good topic for the general forum.
What percentage nationality are you?
By breeding, I'm 50/50 English and Irish, but I've never dug any deeper.
My son is 50% Polish, 25% English and 25% Irish, though further research might skew the balance somewhat, especially if I find the real father.

I got OY DAFT BANKA which ironically is what my wife says to me when she catches me making anagrams out of footballers names.
 
Who am I kidding, she left me! 🤣

I love Stearman and to me Stearman is a bit like our Scott Carson. In that, he could have gone to a lot of league 1 or ANY league 2 team and played games.  Infact I'd probably would have played him more here had I been in charge.  But, there were players ahead of him and Stearman didn't sulk, whinge, take swipes in interviews, he just got on with it. Trained, supported, played his part.
I will always remember him for that and if there was a player out the whole squad I could meet and shake there hand, it is him! Just to say "Thank you sir and good luck for the future."

I'm the vicar. 

If not, you can travel, and VPN Airways are very helpful!

Wednesday's approach will be very interesting.
Do they assume they'll be playing us in the playoffs and not want to reveal anything so rest their best players?
Or will they prefer to play against Peterborough in the playoffs so go all out against us?

@Peaceful Chairboy
Plus while many Derby fans are ashamed of having an owner that took them into adminstration, how do the Wycombe fans feel about having an ambulance-chasing owner whose attempts at extortion nearly put our Club out of business forever?

Don’t worry, every club has their fair share of keyboard warriors.
I get your comments about Mel Morris (yes, definitely better aimed at him that our club) but I’m wondering what your thoughts are on a) directing your anger at the EFL rather than Mel. After all, it was them that agreed that our submission could be delayed and b) Do you really have that much to complain about really. If we had received a points deduction that season, it would have been for offences committed in previous seasons when WW weren’t in the Championship. Therefore, if you’d stayed up rather than us, it would have been due to good fortune rather than performances on the pitch.
I’m not looking to pick a fight. I’m genuinely interested in a Wycombe fans view on these two points of view.

Waitrose bound …

Going to be tight, nervy, not easy by any stretch of the imagination.......
 
0-5 to the rams. Jason Knight frgs

Them 1 DCFC 3
FRGS Collins 
To quote Kevin Keegan .. I’d love it if we beat them ! 
 
I’d love it even more if we give them a proper hammering. 

Well their unbeaten and winning runs stretch longer than ours and they already had points in the bag to be well ahead of us. And even their defence is better. So I'm not surprised by their supreme confidence. Which is backed up to an extent by stats guru Nate Silver who gives them an 61% chance of winning the league: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/league-one/
However, in the same analysis, we've now overtaken Ipswich as the third most likely team to be promoted with an 11% of winning the division and a 22% chance of coming second. And only a 6% chance of finishing outside of the playoffs. And the claim is with a 53% chance of promotion, we are now slightly more likely than not to go up. I would be thrilled, beyond measure, to finish second this season I tell ya.

Having a curious look on Owlstalk it seems they are home and dry, that 8 point gap with 18 games to play is irrelevent as they are now unbeatable it seems.................they could be right of course, I guess we will have to wait and see.